


Secondhand

by bluewhitewings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Kissing, Sam is mentioned, That's why he jogs, cas wants to make out, oh yeah, sam totally knows about Dean's mornings, set roughly in s9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5444921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluewhitewings/pseuds/bluewhitewings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mornings in the bunker are quiet.  Sam jogs and Dean... well, Dean spends them with Cas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The path through the bunker was familiar. A left here, and a right down the hall. Check Sammy’s room. The bed was made, clothes bundled on it. His brother would probably be out indulging himself in some freakish habit, like running, or eating salads that he found at weird restaurants that served you wheatgrass shots. Who the hell would drink a shot of wheatgrass? Dean would never understand. Everything seemed to be in order in Sam’s room, though. His brother would be back at some point soon, and wouldn’t eat the massive pile of bacon and scrambled eggs with cheese, but he would be home to start another day of studying. 

There was only one other room to check for his little family. Making his way to that door, he tried to ignore the feeling in the pit of his stomach that he didn’t get for anyone else. He tried to ignore the way his steps sped up, forcing himself to relax, walk at the same sedate pace. Sip his coffee like he didn’t have anyplace to be, anyone to see. 

Castiel’s door was ajar. Dean knocked two fingers on it, pushing it open slightly to peek in on the former angel. “Cas, I made bacon. And eggs.” The dark haired man was awake, on his back with one arm thrown above his head on the bunched up pillows. He stared at the ceiling with wide, worried eyes, but sat up when Dean spoke, letting the blankets pool in his lap. Dean denied any feelings that might have arisen in him at the expanse of bare flesh, and sipped his coffee impassively as he leaned against the doorway. 

Castiel rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, and ran a hand through his hair then over his mouth. The night’s growth of stubble on his cheeks and jaw dark against his skin, the sound of his fingers scraping across it loud in the silence. Dean shifted. Every morning was like this. He would stand and watch Castiel attempt to do mornings like a human, and in the meantime, his brain would come up with explicit Cas-related fantasies and encourage him to try them out. Staying with him in the mornings was torture, but somehow sweet.

“How’d you sleep?” he said. Castiel shifted so that his feet were on the floor, standing and stretching his arms over his head. Dean’s eyes flicked downward over his torso, taking in the muscular planes and the dip of his navel, raking across the angel warding tattoo, and across the waistband of the slightly too-large boxers to the hollows just inside his hipbones before jolting back to reality.

“Poorly.” Cas replied, the gravelly edge to his voice more distinct with the sleepiness that edged it. Dean watched Castiel pad toward the bathroom, and moved in to sit on the foot of his bed. He looked around Cas’s room. It was bare. No decoration, simply a bed and a desk. The bare walls didn’t have the air of obstinance they would have had if the guy still had his wings. Instead, more of a helplessness, suggesting that they would have things on them, if only their occupant had the first clue of what he wanted on them. Dean resolved to get him some posters for Castiel’s first human Christmas. 

Water shut off, and Cas padded back in on bare feet, returning to the bed and sitting next to Dean. He reached a hand out to him, a silent request for his coffee cup, and Dean gave it to him. They sat close enough for their thighs to touch. Cas nursed the coffee, his bare shoulder brushing against the gray fabric of Dean’s favorite robe. Their time together would never be something he spoke of to his brother, this undefined span between sleep and wakefulness where he didn’t care about personal space and sitting close to a mostly undressed man, and sharing secondhand kisses through the lip of a ceramic mug.

He wouldn’t talk about it with Cas, either, and the moment always came when the former angel would push the issue a little too far. It wasn’t ever anything done with malicious intent. He’d just say something, or do something, or touch, or breathe and Dean would run. 

“I’m cold. Are there any more robes like yours?” Dean took the coffee mug back when it was offered, lifting it to his lips and tasting the warmth of the coffee and his betraying mind imagined it was Cas’s lips against his and Castiel in his robe and boxers because he knew there wasn’t another one, and somehow the coffee was going down the wrong pipe and he choked. And suddenly he had to get out. 

“Probably,” he said, standing. “I’ll go look.” Cas watched him as he got up, and watched him as he left the room. The angel was always silent when he ran, and somehow Dean knew that Castiel knew why. At least it didn’t seem like he was hurt by Dean’s running off, Dean didn’t know if he could face hurting Cas again. Not after all the hard knocks he’d had already.

He spent a good twenty minutes in the storerooms. He knew there wasn’t another robe, but at least he looked. He did find some pajamas, grey silk, in an older style, with the Men of Letters emblem embroidered on the breast pocket and every edge lined with white piping. He grimaced a little, but he had to admit they were soft, and would be warmer than just boxers. And a little part of him really wanted to see Cas in them. But he squashed that part down to where the rest of the things he didn’t want to face and left the storeroom with the folded garments in hand. He made his way back to the main rooms of the bunker, and on his way left the pajamas on Cas’s pillow.


	2. Deal(breaker)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My chosen human wanted more so I hammered this out in an hour or so. Dean has all of the self-preservation of a moth around a flame.

Sam was in town, leaving Dean with his usual habit of haunting Cas or avoiding him. This time he hid in the kitchen, busying himself with reorganizing the kitchen equipment so he wouldn’t have to think about how good Cas looked in the pajamas he’d found. The pajamas smelled like warehouse, of course, because Cas hadn’t worn them long enough that the scent of his skin worked its way into the fibers, but Dean found he liked the soft gray. It didn’t steal the spotlight from Cas’s eyes, which were remarkable. 

Dean assured himself that everyone thought so, not just him. 

It wasn’t long at all before Cas found him, in search of more coffee or more company. He always found Dean, or Dean found him, like moths to a peculiar flame that burned between them when they were near. He shuffled in with Dean’s coffee cup and refilled it, setting it on the counter near a mixer and picked up the bowl with curiosity, long fingers spreading over the brushed metal. 

“I want to learn cooking.” Cas said suddenly, and Dean froze. It was the most overt flirting with him Cas had ever done. If it even was flirting. Castiel looked at him, fixing him with a mild look, but Dean knew him well enough to see the curiosity and cautious optimism hidden in his expression. “Will you teach me?” Dean cleared his throat to find his voice and the measuring cups he was setting on the counter clattered loudly.

“I’m really not the guy to... teach anybody anything about cooking. You should watch some Julia Child on YouTube or something.” he said, roughly. Him, a teacher? Teaching an angel to cook? It was laughable. He pulled out another set of measuring cups, identical to the first, and sorted through them. This set was missing the 1/3rd cup measure and he sniffed and rummaged through the drawer. 

Castiel moved around the counter to look through the drawer with him and pull open another, deliberately getting into his space as he had when his powers had been at full. “Julia Child is lovely,” he said with a warmth in his voice, “But I want to learn from you.” He produced the 1/3rd cup from somewhere and set it in Dean’s hand.

Dean frowned at the cup then looked at Cas and pursed his lips in thought. Having another cook around who appreciated burgers wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. Hell, if he ever got sick, Cas could make him soup and keep him company, and that sounded downright pleasant. “Okay. You got yourself a deal.” he said with a crooked grin.

Castiel was silent for a moment, watching him, and Dean knew the look that was growing on his face only too well. He knew that look and he could feel his stupid betraying heart swelling with what was definitely not affection, because Cas was a friend and not anything more. But he was gonna do it, he was gonna make a joke and it was gonna be stupid but hilarious all at once.

“Isn’t a deal usually sealed with a kiss?” he offered casually and Dean suddenly realized that look wasn’t the ‘making a joke’ look at all. This was a new look that had Cas looking at him from underneath those goddamn fantastic eyelashes. This was Flirting, with a capital Ffffucked. 

Dean stammered uselessly. He was backed into the corner of the kitchen with a flirting, amorous ex-angel and he had no idea what to do. “Isn’t it, Dean?” Cas prompted softly, and Dean cleared his throat. 

“Yeah. But. Uh. This isn’t that kind of deal,” he said in a rush, sidestepping him and rushing out of the room in a panic. 

“Dean!” Castiel protested behind him, but he couldn’t stop.

 

He ended up in the garage, working on engines, his shirt soaked with sweat and his mind blank. Every time he stopped, he saw it again. That goddamn flirty look. What would Sam think? His brother would ridicule him. More than he already did. Dean sat on the workbench and simply panted for a time, letting the sweat dry on his skin and sipping from a beer. 

There was just no way he and Cas would work as a pair. It just wouldn’t work. If Cas wanted him for emotional companionship, well, he was barking up the wrong tree, because Dean didn’t do that. Same with snuggling, cuddling, canoodling, or anything else of the sort. He did fucking, but not men, or man-shaped supernatural beings. 

But one time in high school, in a small town far away from where his father was hunting, he had kissed a boy. He flushed with shame even thinking back on it, and squirmed at the memories of that long-distant touch. Maybe, if Cas wanted to kiss him, a real kiss, he could start there and they could maybe really kiss. Once. Just to teach him how and show him what he was missing. 

Dean slid off the workbench and went to seek out his wayward angel.

He found him in his room, as close to sulking as he’d ever seen him. He had stolen Sam’s laptop and was surfing the web, shoulders slumped as Dean tapped his door. Whipping around, the angel slapped the laptop shut and faced him, his gaze cold. “Dean.” he said in greeting. The flame between them had turned to ice and Dean shivered. 

“I was thinking about what you said earlier. In the kitchen.” He mentally slapped himself. Of course he meant that. Why else would he be facing the cold fury of an angel scorned. “I was thinkin’ maybe that was the kind of thing you seal with a kiss.” He felt his face grow red as he stared at the floor, the heat of embarrassment rolling off him in waves. 

“No, you were right.” Castiel said coolly. “It was irreverent of me to suggest such a thing, given your prior experience with crossroad demons. I release you of your need to apologize.” He was silent for a time, his head tilted but his gaze just as icy. “Don’t you have a kitchen to clean?” he asked pointedly.

Dean cringed and slunk to the doorway. He hadn't expected his advances, as innocent as they were, to be rebuffed. “Yeah. I’ll uh. Be there if you need me. If you want to learn to cook or um, anything else.” he said, guilty, then lost himself in the hallways.


End file.
